WDHB’s Learning Expedition

Quicksand hosted an executive team from Schneider Electric as part of a Learning Expedition program organized by WDHB. The team had the chance to meet local energy and micro-grid experts through a facilitated discussion format on novel best practices in emerging markets:

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During the course of a five-day workshop and crash course held at NID with students from the NID Exhibition Design program, Salil and Hugo, two Quicksand design researchers explored new possibilities in storytelling through the creation of unique virtual spaces in Unity using a mix of digital content and items 3D scanned using photogrammetry.

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Quicksand Co-Founder and Partner Ayush Chauhan and Principal & Communications Lead Kevin Shane led a daylong workshop at UX India, India’s largest international user experience conference. The theme of the workshop was Design for Social Impact, and Ayush and Kevin led the participants through several design activities and games using case studies from Quicksand’s decade-long experience in the sector.

Principal & Communications Lead Kevin Shane was part of a panel discussion on “Design for Social Impact” at the Under 25 Summit, India’s largest youth festival. Leaning on his experiences working in the development and humanitarian sectors, Kevin highlighted the key role of the design thinking process in driving both innovation and impact in the work Quicksand does.

Senior Design Researcher Rikta Krishnaswamy was featured in Channel News Asia’s premiere episode of the series “Field Guide to Innovation”. Along with our partners on the project, Rikta discussed our recent work in Cambodia to reduce the use of plastic bags in the country, whilst also advocating for a human-centered approach to designing new, innovative solutions to longstanding problems and challenges.

Babitha recently participated in a design Sprint in the beautiful Scottish village of Anstruther on the Fife coast. The sprint was anchored by Mozilla Foundation and Prof. Jon Rogers of University of Dundee, to explore open IoT, especially in the rural context of this Scottish fishing village.

The sprint brought together artists, technologists, makers, designers, researchers and others from all over the world for a week to simultaneously learn from fishermen, farmers and teens in the village and to then think of IoT products and stories that sought to build on this understanding. While most such endeavours tend to be focused around the same-ness of city living, the week in Anstruther yielded rich learnings for the whole group. It also provided an alternate way of thinking about innovation, in a slower, more deliberate, thoughtful manner that is an important counter-point to the pace and approach of hackathons.

The sprint was also the third in a series of events that kicked off with the UnBox Caravan at NID in February 2016.

Building on our relationship after working together on our plastic bag project, Excess Baggage, Fondazione ACRA engaged Quicksand to facilitate one of the working groups on Boatcamp - a four-day workshop for budding social entrepreneurs. Boatcamp took place in the context of a cruise between Rome and Barcelona, and addressed the unique problems faced by eight business cases identified internationally from a diverse range of contexts. Fondazione ACRA - in association with OPES Impact Fund and Compagnia Di San Paulo - invited over 300 participants, established mentors and expert speakers in social entrepreneurship to innovate on the development of sustainable high-impact business models.

Quicksand was asked to facilitate the leadership of the groups addressing one of these eight business cases. We worked with social entrepreneur, Biko Evarist, to analyse the unique problems facing his business, Education and Entrepreneurship (E & E) - an educational organisation to support young people in rural Tanzania who had missed opportunities to continue their learning beyond the age of 13. Rishabh and Tom worked with Biko and their 34 allocated participants to study Biko's business case, deconstructing it collectively, identifying high-impact areas for improvement and reconstructing the business case as a compelling story attractive to potential funders.

In addressing the challenges facing E & E, the team were fortunate in being able to make use of the expertise of experts such as Jack Sim from the World Toilet Association and Martin Burt from Fundacion Paraguay. Following E & E's board meeting the day after returning to land, Biko reported that the company has received follow on funding to continue the expansion of their operation.